The Numbers We Ignore
Sexual Assault Awareness Month is necessary. It wouldn’t be if we rejected the status quo.
April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. The National Sexual Violence Resource Center launched the first national SAAM campaign in 2001, but decades of grassroots activism came before it.
All these years later, we should ask ourselves: why are we still talking about awareness?
A pervasive crime, hidden in plain sight
One in four women in the United States has experienced rape or attempted rape in their lifetime. Expand that to sexual violence involving physical contact, and it’s more than half of women (CDC). When you consider that only about 31% of rapes are reported, according to RAINN, the actual number of assaulted women climbs to an unthinkable level.
Despite headline-making stranger rapes, most assaults happen under the radar, committed by someone the victim knows. Sometimes it happens in a relationship. Sometimes it involves manipulation, coercion, or drugs.
Sometimes it’s a nauseating combination of all of the above.
A recent CNN investigation mapped a global network of men who drugged and assaulted their own wives and partners, often sharing footage online.
Yet we still assess survivors’ credibility based on their character. We look for inconsistencies. We don’t start from a place of belief, despite the pervasiveness of this crime.
Not because the facts aren’t there—but because accepting the sheer scale would force us to confront uncomfortable truths. It’s easier to question the survivor than the crime.
Changing the conversation
What if we collectively stopped accepting the status quo?
What would change in how we treat survivors? In how police departments, prosecutors, and other institutions investigate reports?
Through my volunteer work at Rise, a nonprofit civil rights organization, my focus is on changing state laws so that survivors’ rights don’t depend on geography.
I’ve written about other ways to get involved and support survivors. But the simplest, most immediate action is often the most powerful: push back on victim-blaming rape myths, and educate others about how common these crimes really are.
Because if we actually believed how common these crimes are, we’d all respond differently.